With image sensor technology making incremental improvements every year, both CCDs and CMOS sensors will continue to get better while becoming even more affordable, which will lead to higher resolution, low-cost camcorders.
CCD vs. CMOS: CCDs have traditionally provided a “cleaner” image via a higher SNR than CMOS, but recent and ongoing developments in CMOS technology have closed this gap, especially in the case of large, high-resolution, high-frame-rate chips.With CMOS, less vertical smear is an advantage; vertical smear is very common when shooting with a very bright object, such as a light, that is in the shot. The effect shows up as “points” coming off a bright spot, which CMOS helps to reduce.
CMOS: Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor. You may be familiar with it from digital still cameras. This more affordable chip consumes less power and contains electronics that convert the analog information from the pixels to a digital form. This conversion must be performed off-chip in CCD sensors.
SNR: Signal-to-Noise Ratio. The higher the SNR, the cleaner the image; the lower the SNR, the more noise. Smaller pixels, relatively speaking, have a lower SNR than bigger pixels.
